Lianne Stokes, author of "Below Average: A Life Way Under the Bar"Annie Wermiel

Lianne Stokes didn’t lose her virginity until she was 30 years old. A miraculous feat in New York City, where people have sex everywhere, including the subway. “Sex drives our culture. Everyone is obsessed with it,” says Stokes, who details her quest to get rid of her “V-card” in her hilariously honest debut memoir, “Below Average: A Life Way Under The Bar.”

Raised in Nyack in the early 1980s, the daughter of an outrageous Vietnam-veteran father, Stokes always felt like an outcast. As she grew up, her intimidating, wacky dad scared away potential boyfriends. “My father starts every conversation by asking ‘Do you hunt?’ I grew up with a cartoon-character version of what men are like,” says Stokes. “I was never able to relate to boys.”

Her senior year of high school, Stokes lied to her dad and took off on a road trip to Ohio so she could surprise her crush and lose her virginity in the “swing state.” But when she arrived, she lost her nerve and told her potential fling the real reason for her trip was to see a regional production of “Cats.”

Attending Syracuse University, away from the watchful eye of her father, who now claimed to be a practicing Wiccan and warlock, Stokes imagined she would finally find love and have sex. “I viewed college as a place where everyone was sexy and dating and boozing. I was a virgin who had only been drunk once. I had visions of myself in a hot tub holding a cosmo in one hand, a textbook in the other, while some babe of a man played with my hair and I swatted him away,” writes Stokes.

Instead she spent a sexless four years studying.

After graduating, Stokes interned on “Days of Our Lives” and “Spin City.” But in the glamorous, oversexed world of television, she still felt like a misfit. “I was working for a bisexual woman who kept complaining ‘my boyfriend and my girlfriend are so needy.’ I hadn’t even had my first kiss yet,” shares Stokes. “My best moment was when Dan Rather smiled at me in the elevator.”

Lianne Stokes and her father, BruceAnnie Wermiel

Stokes went on to work at famed Manhattan advertising agency McCann Erickson — another environment that created erotic imagery to sell big brand names. Unfortunately, it provided no aphrodisiac for her either. “There were stories of high-level executives traumatizing young entry-level employees by having day sex in their offices. I was glad I wasn’t doing what they were,” says Stokes. “I wasn’t a woman yet. I was like a 15-year-old set loose in Manhattan to play with the bad adults,” she writes.

“My whole relationship with men was full of unrealistic expectations,” says Stokes. “I was completely enraptured with an ideal and not finding it, so I kept holding back. My shrink told me I was 10 years behind. I said, ‘More like three’ and she said, ‘No. Ten.’ ”

Nearing 30, Stokes was still a virgin. One of the romantic entanglements described in her memoir was a comedy writer for “Saturday Night Live” who lived in a dingy Stuyvesant Town apartment with a ceiling covered in fake plastic grapes on vines. “He told me it was called ‘The Grotto’ and asked me to sign a waiver,” quips Stokes. They did not consummate their attraction.

On the eve of her 30th birthday, Stokes decided it was time to “rip the Band-Aid off.” She realized the perfect guy was never going to come along in New York. So, a week later, upon meeting a ginger-haired Scottish man at the Williamsburg restaurant Sea, she took the plunge and went home with him.

‘It took me years to realize that was part of my charm. When you’re an oddball, you feel left out. Then you realize everyone around you admires that you’re not like everyone else.’

- Lianne Stokes

“After asking me to buy drinks, he said, ‘Don’t expect too much.’ I said ‘Oh! You’re breaking ground for a whole new string of lowered expectations.’ ” For their time between the sheets, he put on a special mix CD he’d made called “babes in the bed.”

He proved to be a disappointment in the sack, but the deed paved the way for Stokes to have future healthy romantic relationships.

“I joined in when I was ready,” says Stokes about losing her virginity. “It took me years to realize that was part of my charm. When you’re an oddball, you feel left out. Then you realize everyone around you admires that you’re not like everyone else. They weren’t judging me. I was holding my own self back.”

Now 37 and living in Austin, Texas, Stokes hopes people can learn from her story.

“I think girls and women should feel like they’re enough,” she says. “I want to empower girls to be able to laugh at themselves more. It’s going to be hard to make it and hard to find love, but never stop your hustle.”